Julie Roberts

Just purchyased Julie Roberts by Julie ("not Julia") Roberts - and it's just lovely. She looks like Faith Hill looked around the time of her first record, and the whole package is very evocative of countless similar records. She even sounds like someone else: especially breaking into choruses, her voice is very similar to somebody else in my vast collection of female country artists. The name is on the tip of my tongue.

But in spite of all that, this is a superb record. And the packaging is what gives you the confidence to buy without hearing it. Sure, I could grab a 30 second snatch of a song or two on the iTunes MS, or I could listen to low-quality samples on-line (if I was insane enough to install Real or Windows Media Players), but it's the packaging that tells me it might be worth a try in the first place.

It's been a while since Nashville put out someone new who is as good as this. They've been busy chasing redneck shitkicking good ol' boys since 11/9, like the always-offensive Toby Keith.

But in spite of all the flag-waving nonsense, I can forgive them that when I hear this. The song, "Break Down Here", which can be heard on her web site, is in my favourite sub-genre of country, the leaving song, the driving a long distance to get away song, like Carolyn Dawn Johnson's "Georgia," Matraca's "Cry on the Shoulder of the Road" (recorded by Ms Mcbride), Trisha Yearwood's "Hello, I'm Gone," and Sara Evans' "The Knot Comes Untied".

"Break Down Here" is as good as all of those - almost too good. Because when I hear it I immediately want to play it again, and it's the second track on the album, and I sort of didn't want to hear the rest of the record, just that one, over and over, until I got sick of it. But it was okay. I got over that hump, and there are other great songs on the record, and all is well with the world.